Blake Young And Attack Performance Racing Out Of Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix

(This original, copyrighted material may not be copied, cut and pasted, published or otherwise reproduced in any way in any medium, which means, don’t post this on another website or BBS. If you want somebody else to see this, send, share or tweet a link or post a link to this page.)

FIM MotoGP World Championship: Attack Performance Racing (APR) Team Owner/Crew Chief Richard Stanboli (right) looks over the remains of his CRT-class MotoGP racebike after it was crashed Friday at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. Photo by David Swarts, copyright Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

American wild card entry Blake Young and the Attack Performance Racing (APR) team are out of the Red Bull Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Young crashed his Kawasaki-powered APR late in Friday’s Free Practice Two, and the one-off racebike sustained heavy damage that cannot be repaired at the racetrack, according to Team Owner/Crew Chief Richard Stanboli.

“We’re done,” Stanboli told Roadracingworld.com. “The frame is damaged beyond repair here. Fixing that is a job for back at my shop.”

Young was well up to speed Friday and looking like he was destined to battle with the second half of the MotoGP CRT field in Sunday’s race, but a case of cold Bridgestone tires resulted in a nasty highside crash.

“It’s my fault. I let the tires get too cold,” said Young. “I was trying to get hooked up with some others guys, and then they would run off the track, so I would have to slow down. Then I was trying to get hooked up again, but I had to get out of the way of [Valentino] Rossi. I should’ve come in, but there was only about 15 minutes left in the session and I didn’t know how long it would take to get the tires heated back up on the warmers. I knew the tires had cooled down, so I was trying to ease back into it. I was going slow and at only 30% throttle and it just spit me off in Turn Five. If anything I would’ve thought it would’ve been the right side of the tire that gave me problems, but it was the left.”

The crash bent the APR’s carved-from-billet-aluminum steering head and cracked it at its weld with the main frame rails. The cartwheel-style crash also destroyed the front wheel, front forks, front carbon brake discs, the carbon-fiber bodywork, the radiator and most of the electronics located in the nose of the bike. But Young was luckily able to walk away with only a sore right knee.

“My Dainese D-Air suit really did its job,” said Young, who was launched high in the air and landed directly on his head and shoulder. “I came down on my head, and I could feel the air bags on either side stabilizing my head in place. So I’m really happy about that. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

Stanboli said he plans to repair his APR and return to action at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix August 16-18.